Anatomy of a B&K Story

Last week, B&K & I met up with my cousins, "aunt" Leslie and "aunt" Rachel, for lunch.  They hadn't been around B&K for a while, so it was somewhat comical for me to dissect what B&K were trying to tell "the aunts".   For example, one of the stories might have gone like this:

Bennett:  "Aunt Weswee, Aunt Rancho, remember, last time, when we went to the party at the pool where the princess party was last night??  That was actually fun.". 

Translation:  We went to a fall party at our golf club, where over the summer we used to swim and Kendyll went to the princess party.  And often, whatever they are talking about most likely happened weeks ago, not last night. 

So in short, they are all about starting sentences with "Remember last time . . . " and finishing with "last night".  And imagine the tone of their voice getting higher as the sentence goes on, a la Stewie Griffin.  Repeat this over & over & over & over again a zillion times a day.    I think part of this stems from us trying to get them to relate to past experiences.  For example, the other day Tim was talking to his friend Kyle on the phone.  B&K were so insistant on knowing who Kyle was, so I said "Remember when we went to Kyle's house to meet baby Madeline?  And you played on the slide & the pool?".  But to B&K, apparently every story should start with "Remember when", even if (or especially if) the person they are talking to wasn't there to "remember" the situation (like when they tried to tell their friend Jack "Remember when we went to see Mickey Mouse at Disney??" . . . I had a fun time explaining to them that Jack couldn't "remember" that because he wasn't there). 

We're also trying to work on the concept of time.  They love to read clocks and are obsessed with the days of the week (if I had a nickle for every time Kendyll asked me if it was Saturday yet, I would be a rich, rich woman).  And especially trying to get across that not everything happened "last night".  :)   

They are also still very much into using big words.  Like "actually".  And "because".  They are very much into talking like adults.  Which I don't think is a bad thing.  But the next time Kendyll asks me "now, was that a wise choice, mama?" when I do something she knows I'm not supposed to, I might have to smack her.  Ok, not really.  Maybe. 

Another funny thing, they are obsessed with talking about "when I get bigger".  Or "am I bigger today, mama?".  And as such, they also love to talk about how Tim & I will get "little".   Love that I'm going to get "littler" someday soon.  Every morning I waking up hoping it happened overnight.  Ha!   The whole concept is very "Mork & Mindy" . . . love it! 

A few other translation tidbits (to build on this past post):
Beingten = Pretend {as in "I'm just beingten to eat this egg, mama"}

Musnack = Music {as in "I LOVE this musnack" whenever a Taylor Swift or Sugarland song comes on.  Thanks, Ashley. ;) }
 Cu-weeze = Squeeze {another example of issues with words starting in "S" . . .as in "I want to cuweeze the toothpaste!"}

They are also {finally} really into coloring & drawing.  Bennett, especially.  A few weekends ago Nana & Papa went on a weekend trip and they left these pictures for B&K to color.  This was Bennett's version:

{from left to right in the bus, Kendyll, Bennett, Mommy, Daddy & Nana.  Not sure where Papa was on this ride}.  

Kendyll & I did this one together.  Can you guess which color she used? The blue scribbles towards the back of the plane represent Nana & Papa flying to Vegas.  ;-)

You can pick your friends and you can pick your . . . apples

A couple of weekends ago our good friends the Keegan & Louden hosted an apple picking play date.  We trekked out to the same farm we visited last year {remember this adorable photo?}. 



There is nothing like having 7 three and a half year olds (plus a couple other littles) loose in an apple orchard and pumpkin patch. 




At one point we tried to get all of the littles to stand still for a photo.   Yeah, easier said than done (we're missing Ava in this pic).



After several attempts, the mamas stepped in to wrangle everyone together. 



After we picked & ate enough apples to feed a small army, we headed back to K&L's house to let the littles run like maniacs in Jenn's massive yard.  Then it was time to eat lunch.  The conversation around this table was hilarious (for example, B&K loved to share with everyone that "if you don't eat your lunch, mommy will spank your butt.".  Not quite sure where that came from, but I think part of the fun was saying the word "butt" over & over again while sitting around the table)



All in all a super fun time and we can't wait to do this tradition again next year!

Tis the season again {aka, I Heart Shutterfly}

If you have read my blog for a while, you know I am a HUGE fan of Shutterfly (as evident here and here).    They have the best photo products around and the customer service and turn around time is phenomenal.  Totally my go-to place for memorable gifts and cards.

I'm not quite sure how we will top the AH-MAZ-ING holiday cards we used from Shutterfly last year.    But thankfully Shutterfly has so many holiday card options yet again this year that I know we will be able to create an even more beautiful card this year!  Here are a few of my early favorites thus far:

Big Cheers

Colorful Greetings

 What Fun

Joy Squiggle

Shutterfly is so much more than cards, though.  Our immediate family knows that every year a beautiful desk or wall calendar is under the tree waiting for them for the upcoming year.  And the calendar I made last year received a compliment from every single person who visited my office!  The quality is amazing and you can totally lose yourself in designing the perfect calendar for each person on your list!

And this year I plan to check out so many of the other awesome photo gifts Shutterfly offers.  I've been wanting to order some new canvas prints!!

What are you waiting for???  Go check out Shutterfly now!  The holidays will be here before you know it! 

Are you a blogger?  Click here for an opportunity to receive 25 free cards from Shutterfly.  I received 25 cards for writing this post, but trust me -- I would have ordered my cards from Shutterfly regardless.  I pink puffy heart love this company!! 

Pinkalicious and Football

Thank you so much for all of the kind words and notes after my last post.  I wasn't fishing for support, but I certainly appreciate it.  I'm happy to report that the end came and went last week and all is good.  Honestly, I actually feel SO much better not to have to go to that horrid work environment every day.  I guess I had no idea how much that was affecting everything. 

My first order of business once I was officially through my "separation process" was to meet up with a few friends to celebrate unemployment.  Dogfish head "Punkin Ale" (with a brown sugar rim glass) . . . pure yumminess.  And so dangerous! :)





Later that evening we had some fun events planned.  Nana & Grandma & I took Kendyll to her first play -- based on the book Pinkalicious (special thanks to Nana for K's cute dress!).  And Tim, Papa & Grandpa took Bennett to his first high school football game.  He was SO excited about it (and apparently thought he was actually going to be playing in the game.  He was quite upset to be sitting in the stands). 



Crappy cell phone pic of Kendyll getting ready to watch the show (she LOVED it!)



Crappy cell phone pic of Bennett at the game -- it was so cold and rainy, but they lasted until halftime!



Thanks to Grandma & Grandpa being in town, Tim & I spent the day on Saturday drinking and watching football.  Glorious!  And on Sunday we celebrated our 7th wedding anniversary.  SEVEN years.  He keeps joking that the itch is going to start soon.  Ha, we'll see.  In true Tim fashion, I was surprised with a little trip out of town for our anniversary.  We drove up to Cleveland to see an up & coming band that has become one of our favorites (since seeing them open for my other love, Dave Matthews, last December in Vegas).  It was such a fun - and unexpected - time.  A fabulous way to kick-off unemployment, indeed.   

And for fun, I'll include one of my all time favorite {klassy} wedding pictures. 

Where to begin . . .

I'm sorry.  I know I've gone MIA again.  And really, there isn't a good excuse for it.  Well, I guess there could be.  Things are hard right now.  I struggle to say they suck, because really everyone is healthy and I have a wonderful family and I really can't complain.  So I'll just say it is hard.  As I've mentioned before, my job is ending next week. I've known since last October, I've had a countdown on my white board in my office starting at around 189 days and I've been ready since February.  But now that it is finally here {or more importantly, now that I don't have anything lined up for after the end}, I'm sort of in a funk.  Working in HR I've had to coach TONS of people through this process.  And every single time I've seen people come out better than where they left.   Yet for some reason I'm having a hard time remembering that advice I've given countless times before (but that's also part of the HR mantra . . . do as I say, not as I do.  Ha!).  This too shall pass . . .

So all that coupled with it being fall and fall is my favorite season yet we don't really have any of our usual fun fall trips planned as we had anticipated {see unemployment issue above} has sort of lead to a nasty funk going on.   Oh and I'm still training for the half marathon - which is less than a month away - but some knee issues have lead to a real decline in my progress.  At this point I can't wait to get it over with and trust me when I say I will never do a half marathon again.  5ks, sure.  Quarter marathon - maybe.  But given I will probably spend 3+ hours trying to finish this baby doing a run/walk combo, I'm not seeing this as a fun way to pass the time any time again in the near future.   I've also signed up for a my first craft fair (in the hopes to stay busy at least doing something), so that is keeping me occupied, too. 

I'm working on getting the blogging mojo back.  I haven't taken any pictures of B&k in almost a month.  But we have some fun things planned over the next couple of weekends, so hopefully I'll get back into making updates more frequently.  I've also been crafting what I'll call a "real world" type blog post about the hell that is having two 3 year olds.  Seriously people, whomever called it the "terrible 2s" must not have made it to age 3.  And since I'm all about keeping it real and passing on the rainbows and puppy dog aspect of parenthood, I plan to do a little documenting of this stage (especially so B&K can read this later on  . . . because trust me, I'll be ALL about reminding them of this age some day when they think they want to have kids!). 

I will share a couple of pictures, though.  Earlier in the summer (uh, like, June), Bennett & Kendyll and I participated in the Lung Walk again this year in honor of my best friend Jenn's mother.   We attended last year as well and it was nice to see the event grow a little.  Also growing were the kids, of course. 

Here is a pic of Kendyll, Bennett, Louden and Keegan from last year:


And almost the same picture taken this summer, though this one it is Kendyll, Louden, Bennett & Keegan (I think):


{and don't ask how we got almost the exact same picture again this summer.  Pure stupid luck, trust me!!}

New Bikes

I realize now that I don't think I ever posted last year about B&K getting new bikes.  Oops.  Yeah, well, we bought them new tricycles last summer. 

However, we learned the hard way that apparently riding tricycles is harder for kiddos to ride than standard bikes.  B&K have a pair of 12 in bikes with training wheels at Nana & Papa's house and ride those suckers like the wind.    So we decided to sell the tricycles and move up to bigger bikes. 
{yes, we I made them wear helmets when they rode their trikes.  Trust me . . . they fell off those things so many times it was worth it.  Plus, I figured they will need to wear helmets on bigger bikes anyway, so might as well get them used to it early on}.
Two weekends ago while I was out for a long run, Tim took B&K to the store to pick out their new bikes.   Kendyll picked out a 16in Disney Princess bike with a seat for her baby.  And Bennett picked out a Cars bike with a pocket in the front.  Too cool. 



Kendyll has taken hers for a spin around the 'hood.  Bennett hasn't built up the courage yet . . . but in his defense, they have to ride in the street since we don't have sidewalks and I think that freaks him out a bit.  So we may try again over at our park here in a few days. 

Catching Up

Um, yeah, wow . . . sorry in the last month I have turned into a sucky blogger!  Lots of stuff going on, I guess.  But nothing really to report. 

B&K are loving their new school.  We all miss "Ashey", of course, but I think we are finally settling into our new routine.  It took a little while for them to get used to being away from each other on their preschool days, but now they are loving their classrooms and teachers (they each have 3 teachers in their new rooms and are in classes that are mixed ages from 3 - 5 yrs).  They get recess time together and they eat lunch at the same time (but I've yet to get a straight answer about whether or not they actually sit together).  The lunch thing is sort of funny, or maybe scary, actually.  The lunches are served "family style" at their school and they are responsible for feeding themselves, of course.  Makes me wonder how much they are really eating.  But Nana has been picking them up with extra snacks, just in case it was a "lunch fail" type of day.

We had a pretty low-key holiday weekend.  Friday night we discovered (through our neighbors) that the "Giant Eagle on Crack" near our house does a $6 for 6 tastings every Friday night.  Build in free childcare at the "play area" and we now have a new Friday night ritual.  Score!  Last Friday it was beer tasting and was so much fun. We even ran into Lauren & Mark (our old nanny & her husband) and their little one . . . actually her whole family!  

Saturday we decided to bike over to campus to meet up with some friends for an OSU tailgate.  We never made it over that way last season (and haven't been there since this time!).  We recently bought a new bike trailer for B&K to ride in (and, well actually, we also recently fixed up mine & Tim's bikes back into riding shape.  They had been sitting in our garage - unused - since we moved here from Chicago 5 years ago!).  The bad news is it was 90+ degrees at 10am and even hotter (and all uphill!) by the time we returned home.  But it was a fun time.

Sunday we threw together a little party to celebrate Labor Day.  I feel bad, though, because we had been promising to take B&K to the pool one last time, but the weather didn't really cooperate (for example, Monday when we went to the Labor Day Arts festival by our house it was barely 60 degrees.  Quite a harsh contrast to Saturday's weather!!). 

All in all a fun weekend.  Our fall is shaping up to be busy, as usual, so it was nice to have a bit of down-time. 

I don't really have any new pictures, but I found these on my camera that I don't think I shared before.  Just some craziness on the couch.